Monday

Apr 30, 2018 at 6:01 PMApr 30, 2018 at 6:48 PM

Attorneys for failed U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore have filed a lawsuit against women who made allegations against the former state Supreme Court chief justice, and an Etowah County man who allegedly furthered what Moore and his wife, Kayla, call a civil conspiracy.

In the lawsuit, filed Monday in Etowah County, the Moores name Richard Merlin Hagedorn, Marjorie Leigh Corfman, Debbie Wesson Gibson, Beverly Nelson and Tina Johnson as defendants, claiming they “agreed and worked together to achieve the common end of damaging the Plaintiffs’ reputations in Alabama and nationwide and destroying Judge Moore’s prospects for election to the U.S. Senate.”

Montgomery attorney Melissa Isaak said during a press conference at the Etowah County Courthouse that it was about “time and context,” claiming the allegations came after the opposition had spent $40 million campaigning against Moore in the special Senate race last year, yet Moore remained 11 points ahead in polls.

Then, 32 days before the vote, Isaak said, came a Washington Post story in which Corfman, a former Etowah County resident, claimed Moore had sexual contact with her when she was just 14 years old. Several other women were quoted in the story saying Moore had asked them out while they were teens and he was in his 30s, working as a deputy district attorney.

Other allegations of improper conduct surfaced after the story became national news.

Corfman told the Post of an incident when she said Moore took her to his home, undressed to his underwear and touched her over her underwear, until she told him she wanted to go home.

Within days after the story was published, Nelson accused Moore of attacking her in 1977. Days later, Johnson accused Moore of grabbing “her buttocks” in 1991 as she was leaving his office after a meeting there with her mother.

The complaint claims Hagedorn met with “an agent” for the Post on Oct. 12, 2017, at the Big Chief in Glencoe, and made false and defamatory statements about Moore, knowing they would harm his character and reputation.

Hagedorn’s brother, David, is a columnist for the newspaper and “resides in Washington, D.C., with his male partner,” the lawsuit states, whom he married in a “high-profile marriage presided over by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, at a time when the legal validity of the practice was at issue before the court.”

The lawsuit notes that Moore had been critical of same-sex marriage before running for Senate. The lawsuit refers to many Facebook posts made by Hagedorn, and commented on by Debbie Gibson in August, before the Washington Post story was published in November. It notes other postings and links to news stories during the campaign.

The August post is critical of local politicians and Senate candidates for not speaking against the racial conflicts in Charlottesville, Virginia. According to Al.com, the lawsuit says, Moore released a statement condemning “the violence and hatred behind the events in Charlottesville."

The lawsuit says “Gibson and Hagedorn revealed their true political agenda to ignore the truth in an effort to discredit ‘local politicians and Senate candidates.’”

The lawsuit refers to other stories Gibson shared on Facebook, and the fact that her sign-language interpreting business did work for the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016.

It notes that Gibson posted a link to a New York Magazine story entitled “Democrats Have a Real Chance to Beat Roy Moore They Should Take It,” at a time when Moore was 11 points ahead in the polls.

The lawsuit contends Corfman met with attorney Eddie Sexton, treasurer of the Alabama Democratic Party since 2011, and a supporter of Democratic Senate candidate Doug Jones, in mid-October 2017.

The story quoting Corfman was published Nov. 9; on Nov. 29, ThePostEmail.com reported that Sexton no longer represented Corfman, the lawsuit said, and a spokesperson for his law firm gave no reason for the loss of representation, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims Corfman has been rewarded financially and “attempted with such notoriety as to encourage her conduct.”

The suit claims Hagedorn escorted Post reporters for several days in Etowah County and attended meetings with other people, including Corfman and Wesson, to “further the false and malicious attacks” on Moore’s character and reputation.

On Nov. 9, Hagedorn expressed his support of his “friend of 40 years” Leigh Corfman on Facebook and two days later, the lawsuit says, he told BirminghamWatch.Org that he’d known her for 25 years, and that they’d talked about Moore over the past “few years” but never in great detail.

The lawsuit claims Hagedorn admitted to drug offenses and prison, but didn’t disclose that he’d been held in contempt of court by Moore on May 18, 1994, for nonpayment of past-due alimony and child support amounting, with interest, to $63,154.33. The next day, Moore issued an income withholding for monthly payments of $600 against that arrearage, the suit states.

The lawsuit claims Hagedorn had close relationships with Wesson, Corfman and Nelson, and dislike and animosity for Moore. It notes a message of support for Nelson the day after she appeared on national television accusing Moore of attacking her when she was 16 years old and a picture Hagedorn posted of himself about two weeks after the special election at a restaurant in Florida, with his arm around Wesson and the mocking caption “Happy New Year Roy!”

The lawsuit claims the defendants committed libel and slander against Moore by making “false, malicious” statements with reckless disregard of the truth.

It says the statements caused harm to the reputation of Moore and his wife, lowered their standing in the community and discouraged members of the community from associating with them.

It claims the defendants conspired for the “political objective of defaming the character and reputation of Roy and Kayla Moore in such manner as to cause them to experience disgrace, shame and contempt.”

It cites the following damages:

• Roy and Kayla Moore suffered damage to their reputations;

• Roy Moore was unsuccessful in his bid for a U.S. Senate seat;

• Roy Moore’s opportunity to run for political office was impaired;

• Roy and Kayla Moore suffered loss of their ability to peaceably appear in public places without suffering unwarranted humiliation that was a direct result of the defendants’ defamatory attacks on their character.

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